words of a (deceived) heart
by sunny-umbrella
Summary: He can feel his wings agitate with his turmoil of emotions, but he can't stop them from shaking, can't stop the curl of fear in the pit of his stomach, can't look away from the boy he loves. The boy he loves, holding a wickedly sharp knife to his own throat.
1. falling

Kageyama sees the knife, and freezes.

"Alright, _king_, nice and easy." The person is too calm for someone threatening another, his eyes veiled with...contempt? Derision?

He can feel his wings agitate with his turmoil of emotions, but he can't stop them from shaking, can't stop the curl of fear in the pit of his stomach, can't look away from the boy he loves.

The boy he loves, holding a wickedly sharp knife to his own throat.

An unnatural laugh bursts out from Hinata—_not Hinata, Hinata doesn't sound like that_—and the former decoy changes the grip on the weapon, leveling it at Kageyama instead. A sneer, completely unsuited to the face he knows so well, curls itself into being.

"Ah, so different than what you expected, hmm?" The not-Hinata takes a step forward, still pointing the knife forward. "When your darling little crow asked you to come over, you weren't expecting _me_, were you?" He stops within inches of the boy, still silent, still shaking. "Right, Tobio-chan?"

He feels a prick of the knife at his throat, and he hastily steps back, never moving his eyes from the face he knows so well. "You—"

"Ah, yes. _Me_." The boy presses forward, and Kageyama's forced to keep retreating. "Long time no see, little king. I have to say, when you asked me how to fly, I never expected you to try to _overthrow _me!" The last few words are snarled, and he can see a glimpse of the demon that has taken over Hinata's body. It disappears just as quickly, and the boy takes a small breath in a body that's not his.

"I didn't try to overthrow you, Oikawa." Even his own voice is trembling. "I told you, all I wanted to do was fly—"

"Lies. They roll off the tongue so easily, don't they?" Not-Hinata grins, a feral one that stretches across his face. _Hinata wouldn't smile like that, his smile's different from that_. "I wonder which truths you kept hidden from this crow. You like him, don't you? Wanted him not to know this side of you?"

They keep on backing up steadily, until Kageyama can feel the breeze across his back, and chances a quick peek over his shoulder. There's a cliff there, where he learned how to use his wings, with Oikawa. Kageyama's not sure why the upperclassman suddenly grew so bitter towards him, and why this is even happening right now; there is a cliff, though, and the edge is getting closer and closer.

But he has wings; why should Oikawa think that this'll be a problem?

"Ah, so you've noticed." Oikawa stretches his smirk across Hinata's face, and it looks so wrong that Kageyama can't breathe. "See, I was originally going to kill you _with _the knife, or something along those lines, but I think that this will be more...personal, I suppose." He motions the knife, and Kageyama has no choice but to step closer to the edge.

"This isn't you, Oikawa." He croaks out the words, searching the face before him for any sign of emotion. "The Oikawa I knew wouldn't be like this."

"Ah, Tobio-chan." The boy sighs out the words, lifting the knife up, as if ready to duel. "How foolishly sentimental you are. I thought you were a smart little kohai—how mistaken I was."

Not-Hinata straightens up, and gives a leisurely stretch. "Well, we've talked long enough; let's get down to the business at hand. Shall I start?" His smirk has morphed into something more feral, and Kageyama is _afraid_, every instinct is screaming at him to _run away_—

—But then Hinata'll be left alone, he promised, _they _promised to be together—

—as not-Hinata wraps his arms around him, brings the knife up to rest at the wing joint, cool steel against feather.

"Goodbye, _king_."

And all Kageyama can feel is a blinding white, can see is a crippling pain; he dimly hears a _thump _of something, and a high keening sound—him?—he staggers back, and (this is why Oikawa wanted the cliff, he thinks dimly) feels air, insubstantial air under his feet—

—a hand grabs his, and he's left hanging precariously, one weak grip the only boundary from his doomed fall to the forest far, far below—

_"Kageyama!" _He dimly registers someone screaming his name, but his back is rippling with pain, and the weak grip that whoever has on his hand is loosening—

—he lets it weaken, slip away—

—and the wind's all around him, fleeing past him and watching him fall—

—the _king _fall—

—and as he's closing his eyes, he can see a spot of orange getting bigger in the field of his fading vision—

—arms, hands reaching out—

—blackness.


	2. dream awhile longer

**back after a super-unplanned-long-absence, it's the fic writer! with another [angsty] chapter!**

**. . .**

_—a memory._

_"You wanna join us? Why?" The shorter one barks out, and Kageyama looks down at the ground._

_"Don't like the old hag I'm stuck with. Too bossy. It's too cold here."_

_"Well, well, quite the rebel then. What's your name, little rebel-chan?" A mocking tone, mirrored by brown eyes that are too dark to be kind._

_"...Kageyama Tobio."_

_"Eh? Tobio-chan? That's a very cute name for a very ugly boy!"_

_"Oikawa, you dumbass. Stop being such a jerk to the kid." The first one says._

_"Oh, fine, but only for Iwa-chan." A sly smile. "Don't worry, Tobio-chan, you aren't terribly unattractive. Only slightly worse than Iwa-chan."_

_He scowls. "I've got my wings, at least. I can hunt, and I can make traps."_

_The older boy leans forward, and Kageyama is reminded of the deceptive strength of the game he catches in traps, soft and amiable on the outside, viciously unmerciful when caged._

_"Well, then..."_

. . .

"...geyama!" He's stirred out of his dreams by a whispered shout.

"Hey! He moved, he's awake!" His back is aching, where his wings joint into his body.

"He's awake, everyone get out!" Although it seems like they're bonier than usual, because the ground seems so bumpy and strange—

"But his wings—" Maybe foreign would describe the sensation better, or painful—

"I'll take care of it." He hazily identifies the voice as Sugawara's, the firm no-nonsense tone he uses with unruly patients. "Now, everyone out! Or I'll have to take precautionary measures."

There's a hasty tumbling of noises, and something is shut—the door?—with a rattle. Sugawara sighs.

"Kageyama?" His voice is gentler, a bit more subdued. "Can you hear me?"

He can. With great effort, he manages to pry his eyes open, and immediately wishes he hadn't, painfully blinking the crust of sleep away.

Sugawara's kneeling over him—he's on the floor, a mat?—watching him warily. It's a darkened room, and bunches of dried and drying herbs are tied throughout it. _It's definitely not the cliff_, he thinks, a sigh of relief gusts out of his body.

There's a twinge of pain—again, right in the joints of his wings—and he winces.

"Kozume-san was kind enough to lend his storageroom to us," Suga starts hesitantly. Kageyama searches his memory—although—parts seem missing?—finally recalls Kenma-the-herb-trader, based in Nekoma-the-forest-city, and then? "Just til you got well enough to travel."

He remembers words that someone let out before scurrying out of the room. "My..." He feels his voice seize up, and he collapses into a fit of weak coughs, each one washing through his limbs with white-pain.

A cool set of hands eases him up, and a glass of—water, clear and—placed at his lips. The first couple sips get coughed out, until his body catches up, and he's able to down the rest of it.

"You're probably still recovering," Sugawara says. "Rest while you can." and Kageyama feels like using his newly-whetted throat to ask him about his wings, why they hurt, what about his wings did the one person mean to say—?

Just as gently, cool hands push him down, back onto the floor, and he feels fatigue drape over him almost immediately.

He sleeps, then. He dreams.

. . .

_—another one._

_"When can you master this weapon by? We're lacking long-distance." Iwazumi (not Iwa-chan, he says menacingly, only stupid Oikawa calls me that) tosses him something, and Kageyama is (only thirteen and he should listen to his elders, teases Oikawa) falling in love with the smooth wood and sleek curves, the string not yet strung across to the other side._

_"A fortnight. Two weeks," he says, and Iwazumi grunts and he's off to go find Oikawa to teach him how to use this bow._

_(Later, he hears Oikawa whisper to Iwazumi, he's a natural no-one-is-this-good, and Iwazumi says, good thing I made you take him on, and Oikawa again, he's a prodigy, and he's using that bow as good as the king we saw once, in the royal hunt, remember that Iwa-chan?)_

_A king, he thinks to himself (as he preens his wings before bed that night), someone like him as good as a king, and it's like drinking hot soup on a winter night, because Oikawa says he's as good as a king and whatever Oikawa says about Kageyama, casual or not, is something he's determined to remember._

_King Kageyama, he whispers to himself, and gets a shiver in return. As if something is warning against the name._

. . .

This time, he opens his eyes to no one, just the bunches of herbs and a lingering ache in his wings. He's lying on his back and it's too bumpy and hard.

He eases his way up slowly, mindful of the pain in his back, and absentmindedly spreads his wings to stretch them out.

Except he can't a sharp pain lances through his wing joints up his shoulders he's seeing white and dark and—

—and orange hair feral grin flash and spiral pain down into—

"—out of it! Kageyama!" Sugawara's there and hands are squeezing his shoulders— "You need to stay with me, Kageyama, don't black out, keep breathing."

He's not blacking out, his vision is sparking with a hundred spots of no color at all, and he's crying, he thinks, he's not sure if it's just another wave of agony it's trying to claw out his eyes, it hurts it hurts it hurts

A hand is cradling his head, he chokes out a sound, he's not sure what kind it is but does it matter it doesn't it matter it does it doesn't his wings doesn't don't aren't—

—they're not _there_—

"Sorry, Kageyama, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," Sugawara whispers into his ear, it's his hand and he's guiding Kageyama to lean on him and all Kageyama can do is cry into the offered shoulder, his own hunched up against the unfairness of it all, his hands useless in his lap—

—his wings, _gone_—

—the nightmare he can't wake up from.

**. . .**

**so yea..totally didn't expect to be on this long of an unannounced hiatus, but school + writer's block = not much writing, surprisingly. -.-**

**because of said school and etc. this fic probably will be updated sporadically, so please go and read as many other fics as you wish!**

**and hopefully Hinata'll show up in the next chapter ahaa sorry about that**


	3. memories and mysteries

I think you'll be the perfect decoy for Tobio-chan, ne?

_He's dreaming, he thinks to himself, he's dreaming, because reality wouldn't be this twisted._

_He screams as loud as he can, but his mouth won't open further than a smirk. He runs as fast as he can away from the frozen figure, but his legs keep striding forward._

_The presence in his body fills with amusement at his attempts, lazily flicking away each try he makes at regaining control. Hold on awhile longer, little decoy. I just need to send my precious Tobio-chan a message._

_Hinata is trapped within his own body, and someone else is speaking with his voice, walking with his legs, holding Asahi's knife with his hands. He's gotten glimpses of what the intruder wants, and—_

_—and he tries to back away, pull his hand away from reaching up and around Kageyama—_

_—but he can feel the hollow bones cracking under the steel, hear flesh tearing apart—_

_He's all yours, little decoy._

_He runs and now he stumbles, sprinting towards the crumpling figure; he screams and it echoes, out into the night._

_He reaches for Kageyama, but he's already falling._

…

"Hinata!" He jerks out of the dream, scrambling to get to his knees, and collides with someone leaning over him. He clutches the back of his head, stars winking in and out of his vision, and vaguely registers the other person as Yachi. Hinata feels guilt stab at him.

"Sorry, Yachi! I should've—" but Yachi's shaking her head furiously, smiling at him. Her eyes are bright with relief, and she scoots closer to him.

"That's fine, Hinata! I probably shouldn't have been leaning over you like that, but it looked like you were in pain, so…here, I need to reapply your bandages." She motions for him to lie down again, and so Hinata does, slowly easing himself onto his stomach again. He feels Yachi carefully unwinding the bandages, and then a cool salve is being pressed against his skin.

He can't remember ever getting this injury.

"Hey, Yachi?" He hisses at a sudden flare of pain, and Yachi murmurs an apology, the pressure on his back easing a bit. "Why—I mean, what am I being treated for? Did I fall or something?"

Yachi stops bandaging, her hands resting on his back, and Hinata wonders if he has forgotten something. He cranes his head around, trying to catch a glimpse of her face. "Yachi? Did something happen?"

She hesitates, and quietly pulls her hands back into her lap, biting her lip. "W-well, it's not your fault! It really isn't, he's woken up now, we thought he wouldn't, but—" she cuts off abruptly, looking away.

Hinata feels dread pool in the pit of his stomach. "What? Who?"

"Hinata, I'm so, so sorry." Yachi's fists clench tighter, and he briefly wonders what could be so bad. "Kageyama—he's alive, but…"

Kageyama? Alive? When had he ever been close to death?

"Yachi, was there an accident?" Hinata said urgently. "Did his prey injure him, or something?"

"N-no, Hinata—don't you remember?" Yachi stares at him in something akin to panic. "You did."

…

He gets the whole story out of her, bit by bit. How Asahi had noticed his whittling knife wasn't there. How he had asked Suga to accompany him in a sweep for it—and Suga seeing Kageyama fall from above, a shrill scream alerting him.

Suga had managed to cushion the boy's fall, powering up and catching him, flying him back to their campsite for help.

Asahi had found Hinata, kneeling at the lip of the cliff, hands covered in blood.

Yachi shakes her head when Hinata pleads to see Kageyama. "We don't know what happened yet. I'm so sorry, Hinata, I really am, but right now, Suga's the only one allowed to see him." She returns to bandaging, fingers working quicker to cover the wound in layers of cloth. "We're not sure how you got this wound, either. Daichi wanted to know when you woke up, so that he could ask you what happened; would that be okay?"

"Yeah, sure…" Hinata listens to Yachi clean up, the quiet clink of bottles and jars preceding the rustling of fabric as she stands up. His hands are clammy, and he clenches them tightly. She ducks out from the tent, and a low conversation follows. He can only catch bits and pieces: 'healthy', 'fine now', 'cut off'. He doesn't see how they could be assembled into a reassuring conversation of any kind.

It dies down, and Hinata hears the door-flap being pushed aside. Daichi comes about into his field of vision, face haggard, speaking of little sleep and too much stress. He sits before Hinata, and locks eyes with him.

"Hinata." There's still an air of authority about him, even in his fatigue. "This isn't your fault. You're a good kid, and you and Kageyama have been working together for a long time. But do you remember something, anything from that time? Anything will be helpful at this point."

"I…" Hinata hesitates. "I…" He makes a frustrated sound. "I don't know. One moment, I was getting some wood, and then there's a total blank. My mouth tasted funny. Someone thought something was funny. After that, I'm holding a knife and Kageyama's falling off a cliff."

"Who thought what was funny, Hinata?" Daichi's voice is soft, coaxing.

"Well—I don't know. Not me. And I have no idea what it was." He looks at Daichi, and notices him frowning. "What?"

"That is strange, but it does seem to be related to what happened." He looks at Hinata again. "Are you sure you don't remember anything else?"

"No…" Hinata hesitates, shaking his head. There's something more he's forgetting, something important. "No, wait."

Anything else? There's an entire part of his memory that's being blocked out, and a wound on his back that can't be explained. But there _has _to be more than this.

"…I can't—Daichi, I'm sorry, that's all I can remember."

Daichi sighs, looking resigned. "All right. You've done your best to help, and no one will blame you for that." He pushes himself up, and leaves through the door-flap again.

Hinata buries his face into the pillow, crushing a handful of blanket in his hand. He was missing something.

If only his damn memory would let him remember it.

**. . .**

**ahhh so sorry this update took so long! I usually upload first onto AO3, and I guess I just..sort of forgot? ;A; If you want to get first updates on anything, I'm more reliable with AO3 updates, so...**

**also all that angst though I'm not quite sure where this is all going but I'll strive for a happy ending! at some point! ^^'**


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